The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution

(Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)

THE PECULIAR NATURE OF THE DUAL POWER

AND ITS CLASS SIGNIFICANCE

5.Themain feature of our revolution, a feature that most
imperatively demands thoughtful consideration, is thedual powerwhich arose in the very first days after
the triumph of the revolution.

Thisdual power is evident in the existence oftwogovernments: one is the main, the real, the actual
government of the bourgeoisie, the “Provisional Government” of
Lvov and Co., which holds in its hands all the organs of power;
the other is a supplementary and parallel government, a
“controlling” government in the shape of the Petrograd Soviet of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, which holds no organs of state
power, but directly rests on the support of an obvious and
indisputable majority of the people, on the armed workers and
soldiers.

Theclass origin and the class significance of this dual power
is the following: the Russian revolution of March 1917 not only
swept away the whole tsarist monarchy, not only transferred the
entire power to the bourgeoisie, but alsomoved close
towardsa revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the
proletariat and the peasantry. The Petrograd and the other, the
local, Soviets constitute precisely such a dictatorship (that
is, a power resting not on the law but directly on the force of
armed masses of the population), a dictatorship precisely of the
above-mentioned classes.

6.Thesecond highly important feature of the Russian revolution
is the fact that the Petrograd Soviet of Soldiers’ and
Workers’ Deputies, which, as everything goes to show, enjoys
the confidence of most of the local Soviets, isvoluntarilytransferring state power to the
bourgeoisie anditsProvisional Government, is
voluntarilycedingsupremacy to the latter, having
entered into an agreement to support it, and is limiting its
own role to that of an observer, a supervisor of the
convocation of the Constituent Assembly (the date for which
has not even been announced as yet by the Provisional
Government).

Thisremarkable feature, unparalleled in history in such a form,
has led to theinterlocking of twodictatorships: thedictatorship of the bourgeoisie (for the government of Lvov and
Co. is a dictatorship, i.e., a power based not on the law, not
on the previously expressed will of the people, but on seizure
by force, accomplished by a definite class, namely, the
bourgeoisie) and the dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry (the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies).

Thereis not the slightest doubt that such an “interlocking”
cannot last long. Two powerscannot existin a
state. One of them is bound to pass away; and the entire Russian
bourgeoisie is already trying its hardest everywhere and in
every way to keep out and weaken the Soviets, to reduce them to
nought, and to establish the undivided power of the
bourgeoisie.

Thedual power merely expresses atransitionalphase in
the revolution’s development, when it has gone farther than the
ordinary bourgeois-democratic revolution,but has not yet
reacheda “pure” dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry.

Theclass significance (and the class explanation) of this
transitional and unstable situation is this: like all
revolutions, our revolution required the greatest heroism and
self-sacrifice on the part of the people for the struggle
against tsarism; it also immediatelydrewunprecedentedly vast numbers of ordinary citizensinto the movement.

Fromthe point of view of science and practical politics, one of
the chief symptoms ofeveryreal revolution is the
unusually rapid, sudden, and abrupt increase in the number of
“ordinary citizens” who begin to participate actively,
independently and effectively in political life and in theorganisation of the state.

Suchis the case in Russia. Russia at present is
seething. Millions and tens of millions of people, who had been
politically dormant for ten years and politically crushed by the
terrible oppression of tsarism and by inhuman toil for the
landowners and capitalists,have awakened and taken
eagerlyto politics. And who are these millions and tens of
millions? For the most part small proprietors, petty bourgeois,
people standing midway between the capitalists and the
wage-workers Russia is the most petty-bourgeois of all European
countries.

Agigantic petty-bourgeois wave has swept over everything and
overwhelmed the class-conscious proletariat, not only by force
of numbers but also ideologically; that is, it has infected and
imbued very wide circles of workers with the petty-bourgeois
political outlook.

Thepetty bourgeoisie are in real life dependent upon the
bourgeoisie, for they live like masters and not like
proletarians (from the point of view of theirplacein
socialproduction) and follow the bourgeoisie in their
outlook.

Anattitude of unreasoning trust in the capitalists—the worst
foes of peace and socialism—characterises the politics of thepopular massesin Russia at the present moment; this is
the fruit that hasgrownwith revolutionary rapidity on
the social and economic soil of the most petty-bourgeois of all
European countries. This is theclassbasis for the
“agreement” between the Provisional Government and the
Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies (I emphasise that I am
referring not so much to the formal agreement as toactual
support, a tacit agreement, the surrender of power inspired
by unreasoning trust), an agreement which has given the Guchkovs
a fat piece—real power—and the Soviet merely promises and
honours (for the time being), flattery, phrases, assurances, and
the bowings and scrapings of the Kerenskys.

Onthe other side we have the inadequate numerical strength of
the proletariat in Russia and its insufficient
class-consciousness and organisation.

Allthe Narodnik parties, including the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, have always been
petty-bourgeois. This is also true of the party of the
Organising Committee (Chkheidze, Tsereteli, etc.). The non-party
revolutionaries (Steklov and others) have similarly yielded to
the tide, or have not been able to stand up to it, have not had
the time to do it.